Why the party-crashing Boston Bruins might be the real deal
For most of the past two decades, the Boston Bruins being one of the Eastern Conference’s top teams was not news.
Led by Hall-of-Fame captains Zdeno Chara and Patrice Bergeron and a seemingly endless procession of Vezina-caliber goaltenders, the Bruins missed the playoffs only twice between 2008 and 2024, reaching the Stanley Cup Final three times and piling up six division titles. The Black and Gold were so dominant that ‘only’ lifting the grail once this century is more often viewed with wistful disappointment than pride in that 2011 triumph.
The early 2025 identity crisis that saw stalwarts Brad Marchand, Brandon Carlo, and Charlie Coyle traded out of Beantown threatened to end Boston’s lengthy reign of terror in the Eastern Conference for good, but the Bruins didn’t even have the decency to humor rival fans in Toronto, Montreal, and Carolina by staying down for the count; Boston piled up 100 points the next year to end its playoff drought at a whopping one season. To the casual fan, the B’s were good in 2025-26, they’re good now, and a strong Boston club is an inevitability on par with death and taxes.
More plugged-in viewers would be less charitable in their assessment of last season’s Bruins, who looked fluky through a pair of readers, let alone under a microscope. Marco Sturm’s agenda to make Boston as big, mean, and miserable to play against as the team was during its 2010s pomp was taken up with enthusiasm by grinders like Mark Kastelic, Tanner Jeannot, and Jonathan Aspirot, but the Bruins’ efforts in the corners (and after the whistle) rarely translated to territorial dominance; only the lumbering Toronto Maple Leafs and disjointed New York Islanders conceded more expected goals in 2025-26.
Brilliant seasons from offensive dynamo David Pastrnak, whose 71 assists accounted for more than a quarter of Boston’s goals, and Alaskan netminder Jeremy Swayman, who took the second-most expected goals off the board (28.8) of any NHL goalie, per MoneyPuck, turned losses to wins all season for the Bruins but did little to convince experts that they’d found a sustainable recipe for success. It didn’t help that No. 1 defenseman Charlie McAvoy would miss the first six games of the season suspended for his reckless slash on Buffalo Sabres winger Zach Benson during Boston’s first-round playoff exit.
To the credit of Sturm, GM Don Sweeney, and a roster that couldn’t have been happy with the media’s dismissal of a highly successful 2025-26 campaign, the Bruins are changing the narrative that they’re content to steal a lead and lay and pray in front of Swayman, even if that’s all the visibly fatigued club could manage in Tuesday’s 3-2 overtime defeat to the Dallas Stars. That contest was the final leg of the 3-0-1 Western road trip that vaulted Boston, now 7-2-1, to the top of the Eastern Conference standings. The Bruins have gotten there by addressing many of the doubts I expressed about their chances two months ago during Daily Faceoff’s team preview season.
Boston’s defensive depth beyond McAvoy was supposed to be a glaring issue, especially with the Olympic gold medalist out suspended. Injuries had significantly slowed down top left-shot blueliner Hampus Lindholm since his fourth-place Norris finish in 2023. Sweeney’s trade for workmanlike career No. 4 option Will Borgen seemed an uninspiring solution to solidify the right side behind McAvoy, and one-time top defensive prospect Mason Lohrei’s future was clouded by his inability to earn Strum’s trust last season.
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Lindholm has brought his recent slide to a screaming halt as one of the B’s most effective skaters. The steady Swede has charged out to a +9 rating with underlyings to match on a makeshift top unit beside Borgen and, more recently, opposite McAvoy. Lindholm has never been a flashy operator, but his legs are all the way back (93rd percentile in top speed by a D, per NHL EDGE), and the dynamic McAvoy has spoken about how his on-and-off partner “opens up [offensive opportunities] for [McAvoy], being so good defensively.”
Borgen has struggled to clear the zone away from Lindholm (36.95 5v5 xGF%) but has been a key contributor to a vastly improved PK (80%), a necessity for a team that often skirts the line between passion and recklessness (6th in penalties/60, 2nd in 2025-26). Just as importantly, that early chemistry between Borgen and Lindholm will give Sturm another card to play if one of smooth-skating rookie Frederic Brunet or big basher Nikita Zadorov manages to establish himself on McAvoy’s left.
Lohrei, for his part, has played his way into Sturm’s good graces as a dynamic puck-moving presence opposite Brunet on his off-right side. Lohrei has five points in 10 games, but Sturm will be even more impressed with his glowing 6-1 game score at 5-on-5.
The Bruins also needed reliable sources of offense beyond Pastrnak, 39-goal sniper Morgan Geekie, and a strong power play (10th in 2025-26), especially after the offseason departure of dynamic second-liner Viktor Arvidsson and the unlikelihood that top center Pavel Zacha could repeat his uncharacteristic 30-goal eruption. Sweeney addressed his club’s potential lack of firepower by trading for JJ Peterka to replace Arvidsson and betting on youngster Fraser Minten to take another step offensively down the middle with a big $50.4-million contract extension. Like the blueline, Boston’s forward corps has vindicated the long-time executive.
Slick winger Peterka was always expected to provide top-six scoring, but tended to ghost out of games when the puck wasn’t going in during previous stops with the Buffalo Sabres and Utah Mammoth. The German hasn’t quite exploded onto the box score yet (3 G, 6 P in 10 GP), but, perhaps spurred on by demanding countryman Sturm, has erased any doubts over his ability to impact all phases of the game. Peterka has never looked so physically engaged or carried play (56.90% high-danger chance share) to this extent. Additionally, his ability to play off both Pastrnak and Minten lends crucial top-six versatility to Sturm, a relentless tinkerer.
We already knew Minten was a physical beast, but his newfound finishing touch (4 G, 4 A in 10 GP) could make that contract a bargain by season’s end, let alone into the far future. Where standout rookie James Hagens (3 G, 7 P) was perhaps the most highly coveted center in the 2024 draft, and both Minten and workhorse linemate Marat Khusnutdinov (2 G, 5 P) flashed last season, Matthew Poitras has been the legitimate surprise package in Boston’s sixth-ranked scoring attack (3.60 G/GP).
Like Lohrei, Poitras went from a standout in a thin pipeline to stranded in a crowded pro setup. He was a dominant AHLer who had previously struggled with the pace of the show, and you wondered if Poitras only made the team out of camp because he had become waiver-eligible. If that’s true, Sweeney must be relieved he didn’t risk sending the playmaking pivot back down to Providence. Still just 22, Poitras has been wickedly efficient (4 G, 6 P in 7 GP) on the fourth line, and it’s possible his surge, along with Hagens’s quick adjustment to the show, could affect Boston’s approach to pending UFA Zacha.
To be clear, all those internal improvements and what already looks like a strong offseason by Sweeney have not turned Boston, ranked 18th in 5-on-5 expected-goal share, into a metric world beater on par with the Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes (2nd) or the rival Florida Panthers (4th). It never had to; if Swayman, who has taken early control of the Vezina race (6-1-1, 1.98 GAA, .928 SV%) after a near miss (3rd) last season, or newly minted captain Pastrnak, one of the most irresistible offensive forces in the sport (566 P since 2020, 5th), could steal a playoff berth when the Bruins were in the red in every metric that mattered, what is Boston capable of now that it’s breaking even?
That’s a scary question for the upstart Sabres and Montreal Canadiens, both of whom were counting on leaving the Bruins in the rearview. It should concern the reloaded Maple Leafs, who sorely regret dealing Minten to their hated rivals. Could the B’s be ready to join the ranks of the conference’s true heavy hitters alongside the Panthers, Hurricanes, and Tampa Bay Lightning? It wasn’t too long ago Boston was the fourth member of that elite cadre.
It might not be too long before they reclaim their rightful place as the boogeyman of the Atlantic Division, either. A few more months of this, and we might collectively forget they ever looked like leaving their perch.
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